Burton Speaks

I'm Burton
from Portland, Oregon, United States.
I'm 33 and live in the Portland Metro Area.
I work hard.
I drive fast.
I play often.
I'm sarcastic, appreciate irony, and find humor in even the darkest of events.
I'm non-traditional.
I question authority.
I'm a know-it-all and a planner.
And most days, I wake up thinking the world is full of fundamentally good people... and have a lot of problems when I'm proven wrong.
Any other questions?

It's not every day that you get to see a car combusting, but this is the second one in roughly three weeks! I happened to be headed up 12th & Center in Salem last night and, strangely, there was a car sitting in the middle of the road, quite on fire. Well, after calling 911, stopping, and checking to make sure no one was in the vehicle (I felt like a good citizen) I took this video when the fire truck showed up.

Good times, good times. Strange that, with nobody in the vehicle, I didn't see anyone standing around with a "Hey, look at those flames coming out of my Thunderbird" look on their face.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Current Mood: Sky Blue

I've been, rather mysteriously, in a fantastic mood lately. School's starting and I'm just full of energy. (The fact that 9:30 AM is my earliest morning may have something to do with this.) In any event, I figured I'd post when I'm in a good mood for once.

Also, it's been beautiful outside. Here's a picture of the state capitol building from the side:

It is through [the Department of Justice's employees] continued work that our country and our communities remain safe, that the rights and civil liberties of our citizens are protected, and the hopes and dreams of all of our children are secured.

Is this not the attorney general of the domestic spying/terrorist surveillance act? I really don't feel that he's done anything to help protect our rights and civil liberties, or even (as a "Bush crony") at all contributed to the security of the hopes and dreams of any offspring I might one day have.

In fact, I'm glad he's gone. I don't miss John Ashcroft, and I won't miss Alberto Gonzales. Let's bring in someone who can maybe do a good job, rather than just agree with the president and forward his political goals.

Friday, August 24, 2007

In what I might consider to be a public service announcement (but others might consider an act of shameless self-promotion), I wanted to point out to both of my readers that school's about to start again and I'm re-activating my school blog "Adventures in Business School". Check it out.

Well, last night I hopped on down to the local Red Cross to get myself trained in First Aid. It was just the most basic of training; I didn't take the CPR portion or tips on how to apply first aid to infants and children (I guess I'll have to let 'em die.) The bulk of what I took away was simply: Check the area and person, call for help, and administer care until help arrives.

I guess this means I can no longer tell accident victims to just "walk it off."

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Now pretty much anyone who actually reads this blog knows where my parents live. If, for some cosmically improbably reason you don't, let us just say that they live in the nice little suburb of West Linn, OR, nestled between Lake Oswego and Oregon City, just north of Wilsonville and south of Portland. It is not the most rural town in Oregon, no, in fact it's been in a perpetual state of growth and development for decades now.

So how, may I ask, did a chicken move in?

Meet the chicken formally known as Kate. (My parents named her after Katherine Hepburn.) She's been wandering around their yard now for about a week or so. We have no idea where she came from, and no idea how long she'll last... but she's there. My parents have taken to feeding her and she'll follow them around outside when they're walking; she's a nice little creature.

Friday, August 03, 2007

So I was talking a walk a while ago through Salem and I noticed that, as I was walking east along Center St. NE near 25th St at about 8:00 in the evening, I was casting a shadow to the southeast. Now this seemed rather peculiar to me, since, although I was just south of the 45th Parallel (by maybe 3 miles), I was significantly north of the Tropic of Cancer.

The view west from where I was standing. Note that the appears on the right-hand side (northern side) of the street:

And a view to the east from where I was standing, looking along Center St NE. Notice the shadows cast significantly to the southeast.

Now I understand the Earth's axial tilt and seasons and so on, but it never occurred to me that, being roughly halfway between the north pole and the equator, I'd ever see light coming in from the north.

So I thought I'd check it out. On both a real globe and Google Earth I rotated the Earth around so that Salem was approximately where it would be at 8:00 PM... but I still didn't see how I could be casting a shadow that far to the southeast. Perhaps I didn't do it entirely correctly, but it seems odd that it would be that noticeable here.